We’ve got Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, What’s App, chat and endless ways to communicate with people without having to be there in the present.

Obsessed with “likes” and “follows” – feeding the monster with new and creative posts.

This plays out into direct contact with real people face-to-face in crowdsourcing situations.

At the country club – group contact.

The pool – cover many people in the time you would have to spend on one.

Girl’s (or guy’s) night out – group therapy in one place with everyone together.

Anywhere we don’t have to be one-on-one focused on an individual in real time.

Crowdsourcing friends is an avoidance of such contact and allows less significant contact with more people – kind of like the principles behind online social media.

If you have made one real friend in life, you are a special person.

If you have one real friend who cares about you enough to focus on your life, you have been blessed many times over.

You’re not a real friend if you’re absent and social media doesn’t count.

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7 out of 10 people basically between 18-34 prefer to text rather than talk according to a new LivePerson study of 4,000 in Western nations in that age group.

Large majorities in that age group think it is fine to use their phones during dinner (42%) or in the middle of a conversation (28%).

You don’t need a survey to know how distracted we are becoming.

But parents are teaching the wrong thing by example.

The parent in the doctor’s waiting room buried in the phone invites their children to do the same.

Taking a call during dinner by an adult is the green light kids need to mimic the same behavior.

Endlessly checking the phone to see if you missed something is a rehearsal for your offspring to also do it.

No child under teenage years should have a phone (and that includes parental excuses that they need to check on their whereabouts and safety).

A screen is not a sitter even though most cars are now wired for backseat video.

What parents do does matter.

There is a new Comcast commercial running that shows a mom pausing the Wi-Fi during dinner to the chagrin of her children and husband that hits close to home.

We don’t have to wait for robots to take over — we are creating them.

Balance the phone as a tool not a way of life.

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When we say there are no words that can express my feelings, we are speaking the truth.

What people facing adversity need is someone to listen to them not speak well intended empty words.

The depth of how long and how intense to listen is in direct proportion to how long and intense your friendship is.

Even poor listeners can rise to the occasion and look the other person in the eyes and just listen.

It doesn’t even take a major crisis or loss to console another.  Just lend them your ear and listen.

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1. No one can give you their drama and angst without your permission.
2. Remember the number 50 that represents the percentage of people who suffer from anxiety health issues. This way you are constantly aware of the price you will be paying if you are not mindful of the effects of stress.
3. People and digital devices cause the most stress. Disconnect from email, texting, the internet and social media as often as possible.
4. Meditate, exercise, conduct deep breathing or pray to keep from internalizing the stresses of life.

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Disappointment is a test to see how badly we really want something.

If you don’t want it, you won’t be all that disappointed in the long run after the initial reaction.

But if you do, channeling disappointment to further your resolve is a hidden gift.  After all, we often don’t know what we want and when we get it, we are over it quickly.

Don’t overlook the power of disappointment.  It is a hidden motivator that drives us closer to our goals and dreams.

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Rudeness is now being baked into our society. 

We are distracted from others. 

Unavailable. 

Focused on our devices not the present. 

We Yelp when we are angry and ignore everyday life.

Try to be an icebreaker.  Start conversations.  

Smile and look approachable even among people you see every day. 

Don’t judge.  

Digital life is an addictive distraction.  Anything you can do to offer someone a break from it will be more welcomed than you think. 

You don’t have to be rude.

Or upset because someone else is.  

You can be the friendly alternative.  

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Email is not a replacement for a conversation.

Any attempt to use email as a “shorter” conversation will end up creating more email.

Yes, even a phone call can cure endless emails back and forth.

We’ve all seen many types of email from what looks like a snail mail letter to incoherent and misspelled phrases.

There are many programs that claim to manage email but the real secret is how it is used.

1. Do not ask any questions that you are not prepared to have to answer. 
2. Ask what would happen if you called that person or didn’t send the email.  
3. If you must email, start off with the main point and stick to it.
4. Email (like texting and social media) is addictive even when we say we see it as a burden.  Putting it off or having email assigned automatically to predetermined files may not help.   
5. See email as a tool, the way texting is a tool. 

I am an Apple Watch user and handling email on it is better in my opinion than on a phone or laptop.  The watch lets you dictate a response and even for a long-winded radio/TV guy like me, it’s amazing how quickly you can get to the point and move on to the present.

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Just saying the words dignity and respect makes you straighten up and feel proud.

It gives us positive reaction just hearing the sounds of words that are power packed.

U.S. Air Force General Jay Silveria, the superintendent of The Air Force Academy told his young cadets:

“If you can’t treat someone with dignity and respect – then you need to get out”. 

It’s arguable as to whether the person being treated with dignity and respect or the one doing it benefits most.

Aim high.

Think big.

Be proud.

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Everyone wants to change – get better, be happier, make more money – but it’s just talk.

Change grows out of gratitude for what we already have.

To turn words into action, try this.

When you awake in the morning, spend five minutes before you get out of bed or as you are showering to name 5 people you are grateful for and 5 things you are grateful for.

You may repeat the same people and things often or daily, but you must say why.

Your spouse because they are supportive of you.

Your parent(s) for instilling special qualities in you.

The person who gave you your first break because without them … 

The doctor that saved your life or made it better.

Your children for keeping you young and exuberant.

After you’ve recalled 5 of each, return to the real world.

But wait!

Don’t be surprised if you can’t stop at 5 – and if you add more later in the day.

I start my days like this and I find it almost impossible to do only 5.

Impossible to do only 5 minutes.

And impossible to stop.

Gratitude is the change agent that eludes everyone that is right in front of our eyes.

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Already – just a few weeks into the 2017-18 NHL hockey season, one of the league’s top stars found himself in a slump.

Toronto Maple Leafs Auston Matthews had a great rookie year last year but as with all athletes (and the rest of us) slumps happen.

In hockey, the players grab the stick harder and bear too much thus continuing the sub-par performance.

In baseball, players pick up bad habits trying to get rid of bad habits that came out of nowhere. 

• Repeat this positive phrase – This slump will not last forever.  I will beat it.  Outlast it.  Won’t let it wear down my confidence.  I will look at a slump as a test of my will.
• A winning streak usually follows a slump – True of athletes who once they break through make up for the lost time.  Also, true of the rest of us who may feel we’re frustrated to perform at our best level when we are feeling pressure.
• Learn from a slump – When what we want or are accustomed to producing evades us, a slump can be a benefit if it tests our will to succeed.  Nothing is more valuable than to deeply believe that we have the will to succeed.  A slump lets us show it.

No one says you have to like a slump in your work or personal life, but it is not the end of the world.

In fact, it’s the beginning of a new winning streak once you test your will to persevere.

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43% of U.S. employees work remotely all or part of the time according to a new Gallup Poll.

IBM pioneered telecommuting but now has had a change of heart citing new research.

So IBM is calling their workforce back to the office to collaborate face to face on problem solving.  40% of IBM’s workforce was working remotely in 2009.  Whether reverting back is a more productive solution, time will tell.

But for employees who resist (including me as I work 80% remotely), there are hidden benefits.

Telecommuting often runs into personal hours and has been accepted routinely as part of the territory.  But in France there are laws that forbid employers from requiring their employees to answer work emails after hours.

Personal and work get mixed together.  Just check Instagram for any person you know who is working remotely and don’t be surprised to find that they have commented or posted content (same with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks).  You can see their “likes” even if they don’t publicly post.

Family and inter-personal time gets compromised.  How many dinners or night time hours are interrupted by someone on your team working virtually?

The answer may not be in banning virtual work platforms although the research clearly favors the results when people work together face to face.

More importantly, be cognizant of how working remotely leaves your life more remote from the people you care about.

Then fix it.

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I’m looking out the window at the tee box for the eighth hole.

Golf is no longer a game of 100% concentration.

While a man’s wife was teeing off, he was scrolling through his phone messages in his cart.

When a group of teenage boys passed through, they checked their phones before hitting the ball and then again, every time they walked to their ball to hit.

Really?

Is that the way we want to live addicted to our phones so much so that we can’t put them away for fear of missing something while we are golfing.

I suspect you can plug in any sport or for that matter any other activity and find a prominent role for a smartphone.

The phones are smart but using them like this, the owners are not so smart.

The phone is a tool not a substitute for living in the present.

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The brain works in two ways.

The default setting is one in which our minds wander.

The second is focused in an undistracted way.

Why is it increasingly hard to focus?

Too much self-absorption – the inability to be in the now 100% laser focused on something other than ourselves. 

A lack of sincere gratitude even for bad things that happen to us that will eventually become transformative.

And the absence of kindness to other people even those who may not appreciate you.

The brain can be trained.

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Anxiety is a very tough condition to conquer.

Pills, therapy, meditation and many other solutions have been tried.

One additional tool is to push off anxious feelings to only certain times in the day.

Anxiety hour may be from 8 to 9 pm if you choose so when the feeling of anxiety comes over you, time shift it until the time you have reserved to deal with it.

Then for that hour and only that hour, feel free to ruminate about what is eating you but only for that hour.

Most people are surprised to find that when they time shift their worries and anxieties, they dispense with them sooner than they thought.

And free themselves up to live a fuller, less anxious life for the other 23 hours.

Anxieties don’t always go away even when problems are solved but time shifting trains us to be less obsessed and therefore happier and more productive.

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If you make your focus talking about the other person and their interests, they will become more interested in you.

Even in the digital age of self-absorption, selfies and competing for likes and follows, no one can resist a person-centered conversation.

Conversation starters …

How are you? (being careful not to also chime in with how you are unless asked)

What do you think?

Why?

A person-centered conversation with the focus on the other person should sound like you’re doing an interview.

It is amazing how responsive people will be to anyone who masters the art of being person-centered.

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Nike said “Just Do It” as a means of encouraging people to participate.

“Get It Done” means for all the team planning, study and collaboration, the most successful individual will be the one who actually makes the plans happen.

That’s who you want to be.

The one who follows through.

Who doesn’t lose site of the goal.

Who seeks solutions to problems that crop up along the way.

Here are the qualities of successful people that are often underestimated:

1. The ability to win the cooperation of others
2. Being the one who gets the project done

As the world becomes more consolidated and even robotic, these two skills will always assure that you are in demand.

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No words spoken by another can be as damaging as the words we repeat over and over in our head that are critical.

Success is passed over and often forgotten – even major accomplishments.

Somehow it is easier for most people to be critical of themselves than it is to be appreciative.

There is no need for an inner critic.

No way we should be our own worst enemy.

Those little voices of self-doubt that affect confidence.

Have you ever heard someone say to you, “Give me constructive criticism.”?  I want it.

A better response is: ”What do you think you’ve done well and what can you do better”.

Balance the quest for perfection with an appreciation of accomplishment.

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Stop that feeling in its tracks.

Employers are frequent culprits of running down employee’s self-worth but even friends and relatives do it often out of jealousy.

Often our jobs are our main focus so when we’re not appreciated at work, we really take it to heart.

The most important judge of your self-worth is you.

Let someone else get into your head with negative input and you’re giving too much power to a person who doesn’t deserve it.

Look into your own soul – what are your strong traits and what needs to be worked on.

When people tear down others, they are weak.

When they help build, they are strong.

Letting people record unfair criticism directly into your subconscious mind is the definition of self-destruction.

The negative message will repeat over and over again doing its damage.

Only you get to deliver messages to your subconscious.

Positive statements that when they repeat will improve your self-esteem not ruin it.

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Our friend Cadillac Jack is a fabulous dj who recently discovered he has stage four colon cancer.

I have a subscriber who underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor and the radio station he worked for would not assure him that his job would be waiting for him if he beats the “Big C”.

A friend dealing with anxiety that controls her life.

Another person suffering from opioid or alcohol addiction that can’t seem to turn it around.

People need hope.

No, they CRAVE hope.

And whether we are that person or it is someone close to us, the one mission we have is not to play doctor or psychologist.

Give large doses of hope. 

Hope is not blue skies. It is positive feedback that things will get better.

The author Norman Cousins was left for dead by his doctors who said he had a one in 500 chance of surviving connective tissue disease.

He took matters into his own hands and commenced taking large doses of vitamin C and tried to lose himself in laughter by watching funny movies.

Cousins lived another 26 years surviving yet another disease in a life that only he believed he would have.

The prescription for dealing with challenging health issues is to take large doses of hope around the clock.

It’s the best medicine.

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You hear more complaints than ever about haters, self-absorption, distraction and how negative life in the digital and social media age is becoming.

Can you name the person in your life who you never get tired of and who puts a smile on your face when you talk?

That person may have positivity in their DNA – the very thing we’re all attracted to but don’t get enough of.

We can be that person if we’re willing to take a few steps:

Greet people as if you are enormously happy to see them.

Focus on them, not you.  No weighing in with your reaction to everything they share. 

Acknowledge their pains and problems but always offer hope – humans need to have hope and if you provide it, you will not only be liked but be loved.

Interact with them not when you need something but out of friendship – just checking in.

Talk in terms of their interests not yours and don’t be surprised if they will return the favor.

To be liked is not about how funny you are or how successful.

Nor is it about how many friends you have accumulated.

To be liked, you must be that one person who can put your own needs aside for the sake of another.

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